Creative Impact

Helping children and young people build their own experiences of harnessing the arts to change the world

Creative learning

Learning through designing, making and experimenting with a meaningful purpose

Tackling global and local issues

Young people researching the social and sustainability issues they want to tackle

Young people developing their own ideas

Supporting children and young people to develop, refine and test their own ideas

Collaborative problem solving

Working together to develop teamwork and collective intelligence

Measuring impact

Does it work? Young people measuring what difference they have actually made.

Creative Impact is a new programme, led by World Pencil, that works with schools, arts and community organisations to help children and young people to build their own experiences of harnessing the arts to change the world - making measurable impact towards sustainability development and social impact.

Why?

Creativity

Creative Impact develops skills, understanding and conducive environments in schools and other learning contexts that support creative, arts-based learning that is motivated by real-world purpose and seeing the difference you can make

Sustainability

It supports children and young people to make measurable impacts towards the huge social and sustainability issues that have significant impact on their lives, now and in the future, such as pollution, climate change or social injustice.

Economy and careers

It supports children and young people to develop practical skills for the future world of work: understanding needs and challenges, bringing people together to meet them, and harnessing arts and creativity for social impact and social enterprise.

What teachers and leaders have said

"There were things that they learnt that no one could teach them in such a short space of time, such as: perseverance, problem solving, resilience and the ability to put knowledge into actions."

"The process has been immensely effective in helping children learn about sustainability, as the best way to learn about this sort of thing is by doing it. It was clear to see the children thinking differently about the impact their lives had on the planet."

"I feel like every child had an important part to play which in turn enhances the self-esteem of the children. I would say that this effect was felt throughout all the children taking part in the project."

How does it work?

Creative Impact was born from seeing over many years how much children and young people can achieve, given the space and support, and also from a growing recognition of the value in being able to harness arts and creativity to make a real difference. We've been developing and piloting Creative Impact approaches since 2015, working with schools, sustainability and arts organisations.

Creative Impact projects can last days, weeks or months, depending on the aspirations and circumstances in the school, or other context. And the level of support each project needs varies too but will often include strategy and planning with senior leaders, training for staff, workshops with students and help with inspiring examples, evaluation, and documentation.

We've identified some of the key 'ingredients' in making a Creative Impact project work well below. If you'd like to get involved, please contact us for a chat about how it could work in your context.

Ingredients in a Creative Impact approach

Local alignment

Aligned to what the school, or other context, wants to do and what the children and young people themselves want to change

Enquiry-based learning

Approaches to teaching and learning that are based on young people's curiosity and pursuing the answers to their own questions.

Project-based design and development

Children and young people learning through designing and running their own projects

Researching the issues

Children and young people doing their own research to understand the issues where they want to make a difference

Stimuli: inspiration from what others are doing

Getting ideas from the experiences and imagination of other people across the world - how people have found ways to tackle challenges and dream up new opportunities

Distilling and focussing ideas

Working ideas into designs and plans, collaborative problem solving, and focussing in on fulfilling the intended purpose